May Ling Su

Tag: mother

  • Angels in Sodom

    Angels in Sodom

    On our first Christmas at the church, we invited our friends Beaver, her boyfriend, and their pet parakeets to join our family for dinner. It had been snowing for days prior and I fired up our kitchen making a bean feast: soaked cattle beans baked for a day with pork, molasses, and spices. The warm aroma mixed with the crisp fragrance of an 8-foot pine tree hung with Christmas lights and toys in the living room made the gothic structure feel like home.

    On Christmas morning Jay made shepherd pie while I simmered spiced wine on the burner. Beaver braved the blizzard and brought frozen fiddleheads she had harvested from her family’s farm last spring. I sauteed the greens in butter and served it up simple, a little taste of spring coming eventually. For dessert she had made a blueberry stollen but was completely upstaged by my kid, at 20 years old, who baked a psychedelic seed cake so light and enchanting like it was made by fairies.

    We sat by the Christmas tree basking in the joy of togetherness. Beaver played her flute, Jay sang and played his acoustic guitar, I sang and played ukulele, the parakeets chirped happily. We exchanged presents, then Beaver and company drove home. Jay and I continued to sing and play more songs.

    During a moment of sleepy contentment, we heard a knock on our front door. I opened the pointed arched door to a young man, big, dark blond hair and mustache, dressed all in black.

    “Are there services?” he asked. “We heard music.”

    I looked at Jay and our 20-year-old kid. I contemplated the possibility that we might have a troublemaker asking to enter our home. Jay is a fierce protector. I rely on his instincts.

    He asked, “Are you a musician?”

    “Yes,” the stranger answered.

    “Then come in,” Jay invited.

    Another stranger joined the man and they both entered our home. The second one was older, balding, and had a dark scruffy beard. He had a brick red shirt underneath his coat, jeans, sneakers.

    I could feel the nervous energy. We’d just let in two strangers, grown men, into our home at nine o’clock on a winter night. If they had malicious intent, could we defend ourselves?

    The men looked around. From the outside our home looks like a church. We have a steeple tower and tall stained glass windows, but inside the space is filled with our hodge podge of antique furniture, books, designer toys, and music instruments.

    Jay strapped his electric guitar on. The first stranger sat at the drum kit. The second man sat and fiddled with the electric bass. They were horrendous. Jay knew what he was doing, of course. It’s his instrument. But the man on the drums was making an awful racket and the man on the bass guitar made halfhearted strums.

    ‘Tang ina, I couldn’t bear it. “May I?” I asked for my bass guitar. The man turned it over to me.

    This prompted a switch around. The first stranger got up from the drums and asked if he could play Jay’s guitar. Jay sat at his drum kit. That was more like it. I played bass to Jay’s beats, and the man surprised us with pretty awesome blues riffs on the guitar. It felt good bumping to the beat as I thumped on those fat bass strings. Everyone was in their element.

    “You’re a hot bass player!” the second stranger said. Then he started ranting like he’d been waiting to front a punk rock band all his life.

    I wish I could have recorded our jam session on my phone, but I didn’t dare break the spell and change the mood. We kept playing, laughing. We couldn’t stop. It was a moment of pure liberation.

    “Are you guys angels?” the second man asked in a pause from his rant.

    I was thinking they were angels before he asked it. Later on, Jay told me he was thinking it, too.

    1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth 2 and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.”

    – Genesis Chapter 19

    Never mind the rest of the chapter. The rest of it is fucked up and one of the reasons why I rejected the Judeo-Christian tradition when I was twelve.

    But two strangers came to our door asking for services and we had the most fun jam we’ve had in ages. As we quieted down, the men fixated on our kid’s euphonium sitting on the large bookcase, unplayed for years. They took turns attempting to play the horn, prompting our kid to clean it and blow beautiful low notes himself to cap our Christmas night. By ten o’clock, the strangers were gone.

    I’m going to file this along with the other strange visitations. An auspicious omen for the coming year. A memory that makes me laugh wildly.

    Jay and I played music at an open mic in Maine on New Year’s Eve, then packed the car and drove south to Miami to take our kid back to college after the holidays. We brought the winter with us all the way down to the Carolinas. In South Carolina we stopped for some catfish. I played the piano they had in the corner of their place.

    We’re back home now and ready for 2025:

    • Write my memoir. I’ve been talking about this for ages, it seems. Write madly, furiously, “like I’m running out of time.”
    • Post more regularly on this blog, maycam, and social channels.
    • Read more! Read the masters and classics. (Currently reading Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut) Read more POC authors.
    • Make clothes out of the handwoven fabrics my Mom brought from the Philippines. (The scarf I am wearing in these photos is handwoven by the Yakan tribe.)
    • Give myself more handpoke tattoos.
    • Get my songs on music sharing platforms.
    • Play music more. Write more songs.
    • Walk more year round. Swim more this summer.
    • Spend more time with friends. Get out. Invite them in.
    • Stay sexy. Stay dangerous. Stay focused.
    May Ling Su Let's Go

    What are you excited to do in the next 12… uh, 11.5 months?

    Love, Lust, and Liberty,

    May Ling Su
  • Let Your Body Bloom

    Let Your Body Bloom

    I had an amazing time with journalist Ana P. Santos on her podcast titled Middle Me: Stories about Sex and Pleasure After 40. We talked about this rollercoaster ride I’m on from the moment I discovered my sexuality through decades of exploration in sex and relationships as a polyamorous pornographer.

    Of course we talk about sex. We talk about porn. We talk about relationships. But also, we talk about family. And we talk about aging and body image. Have a listen.

    Our interview is spread out over two episodes:

    Stories about Sex and Pleasure After 40

    I also love that one of my longtime MAYCAM members, who happens to be a physician, reacted to this quote from the podcast:

    “Physiologically, the reason you’re still ‘wet’ and not having issues with dryness nor menopausal symptoms is actually due to the ‘use it or lose it’ scenario. Believe it or not, i) the more skin-to-skin intercourse you have while going through menopause causes hypertrophy and healing to prevent vaginal wall atrophy (meaning if you were less sexually active, your vagina would start to atrophy); ii) high semen exposure inside the vagina stimulates high concentrations of estrogen, progesterone, and other important hormones to women. The vaginal wall and uterus absorbs estrogen 10x more effectively than if estrogen is given orally or even intravenously. Your ongoing sexual activity with vaginal creampies was doing the equivalent of prometrium (hormone replacement therapy directly to the vagina).”

    So let’s get it, my Golden Girls! We owe it to ourselves and our lovers to let our sexual experience and emotional maturity bloom well into our senior years. We are not too old to have sex. It is natural and healthy to have mind blowing sex after menopause.

    Cheers! 🍷

    May Ling Su signature

    P.S. I made you a playlist for tonight. Gaze at the total lunar eclipse super flower moon while listening to these moon tunes on Spotify. 🌸

  • Batgirl

    Batgirl

    When I was five I was Batgirl. Not just on Halloween. I was Batgirl everyday, everywhere. Eventually my Mom convinced me that I didn’t need to wear the costume to be Batgirl. After all, superheroes are still superheroes even when they are in their civilian clothes. I adored Barbara Gordon just as much as I did Batgirl. She is a Librarian, a real hero in my book.

    I went into first grade at a Catholic school run by nuns. (I wore a tan uniform on regular days and an all-white one they called our gala uniform for when there was Mass on a special day. But this is irrelevant. Anyway…)  One afternoon after school I was snooping around the nuns’ cloister  and found a giant fruit bat, the famous flying fox, hanging upside down from the rafters. I don’t know how big it actually was, but six-year-old me remembers it as humungous. I may as well have seen God. I trembled in awe and fear, backed away with my wide eyes glued, hoping the creature does not fix its powerful gaze upon me.

    For the rest of my life the Bat owns me. I invoke her powers when I need resonance and echolocation, courage in darkness, rest in uncomfortable circumstances.

    Like that time in New York City when I met the Man I would marry. It was the middle of a blizzard. He invited me to his place on Staten Island, a Victorian Mansion haunted with giant ceramic demons hanging from trees, feathered Indians made of stone, and life size Nativity figures looking out from inside the street-level fence. Indoors there were grand pianos, antique furniture piled on top of each other, a billiards table in the basement, and taxidermy birds, fox and a giant elk head mounted on the other side of the wall his third floor bedroom loft was against. By the time I got in his bed, we had already been out three times and I was wondering why he wouldn’t make a move on me. So I kissed him. That was all it took. It unleashed in him the giant wild horned beast just a wall away from our heads. We fell in love.

    There was one afternoon when he and I walked from the Mansion to the Staten Island Ferry bound for Manhattan. He stopped me, and bent to pick up a black plastic Batman ring on the snow-white ground. Then he took my left hand and slipped the toy on my ring finger. Realizing what he’d just done, we both became nervous. A strong gust of cold river wind hit us. I pondered it all while the winding winter wind whipped at us. At that time I hadn’t yet told him I was Batgirl. What was going on? Who gave him a clue? And most importantly, did it mean I could hang upside down with him for the rest of my life? The Lenape natives called the large island south of Manhattan Aquehonga Manacknong, “Sandy Shores and Haunted Forests.” Those island ghosts knew.

    May Ling Su is Batgirl
    Watch my Batgirl movie at MAYCAM

    Decades later, my Elk-Man and I live together in a big old 19th century farmhouse with a barn attic full of antique furniture, art, and toys of our own. I’m still Batgirl and this is where I hang.

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  • When I think of home…

    When I think of home…

    I think of tropical monsoons and coconut trees swaying in the furious wind. I think of guavas and mangoes and spiders as big as a man’s palm.

    I think of the hot California valley, swimming pools, and strawberry fields as far as I can see.

    I think of New York city streets, libraries and museums and theatres and cafes.

    I think of a Victorian mansion with a view of the Manhattan skyline. I think of art, antiques, and taxidermy. I think of bohemians and decadence.

    I think of a California cottage by the bay, overrun by ivy. I think of dot-com days and swinging nights. I think of friends on the futon.

    I think of a home by the lagoon. I think of ducks and geese and my baby. I think of young buff men fucking my thirsty mom body.

    I think of a little red cabin by a Maine lake. I think of being underwater all summer.

    I think of a modern cottage on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, surfers on the beach below, sand constantly between my toes.

    I think of an old farmhouse and barn in Maine. I think of ghosts and absolution.

    You are my home and I am yours.

    May Ling Su signature

  • What’s your poison?

    What’s your poison?

    I put on the antlers Jay bought me a few days ago. It made me happy to run around naked in the woods behind our house where many a herd of deer have passed through. I keep a pile of fruit and vegetable scraps at the edge of the wood year round, but winter is when the wild life need it most.

    I hiked to the top of this cliff. Jay took my photos from the bottom of the rocky hill.

    I went down on all fours like a beast, waving my invisible tail side to side. When I descended he covered me with his arms and told me I was beautiful.

    We made love tenderly at first, then dirty, like animals. He filled me and filled me and filled me until I oozed delirious and he was spent.

    I washed up, got dressed, and picked up our kid from school. I slid to the passenger seat to let her drive us home.

    “How was your day?” I asked. She paused before she told me she had a weird day of not much happening in her classes, then at study hall her friend messaged to say that his dad died. He wasn’t ill. He just died. My daughter seemed deeply affected by that. It hit her hard to think that any day, without warning or indication, she could lose either one of her parents, too.

    I took a proactive role and said that we should go get food for her friend’s family. We got a whole rotisserie chicken, a vegetable side dish, and yellow chrysanthemums. I told my daughter to text her friend to ask if we could come over with some food. He said yes.

    By the time we got out of the grocery store, it was pouring really hard. My daughter drove in the rain to her friend’s house. It was a long way to Hope, which is the next town over from ours. She turned into a dirt road and up a hill. At the top of the hill is her friend’s house. His family had moved here from Illinois just a year ago. The car parked outside still has Illinois plates. Who knows what situation they are in now without the father?

    My daughter wanted me to come along with her. She is so shy, my kid. We put on our masks and walked up to the house.

    Her friend answered the door. He looked tired. His eyes were red and puffy.

    “I’m so sorry,” I said, as I handed him the paper bag full of food.

    He said, “None of us feel like cooking.”

    “We figured,” I said. I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t know what was right anymore. We ran back to the car to get out of the rain.

    When we got home, my daughter baked me a birthday cake while Jay and I made dinner. We talked about life and love. We told stories and laughed. Underneath it all was the thought that death comes for us all, sooner or later. The question isn’t when, it’s how.

    Find what you love and let it kill you.

    Attributed to Charles Bukowski

    We all get to pick our poison. Some people choose alcohol, drugs, sugar. Others have an obsession with thinness and beauty. Then there are those whose passion becomes a poison, revolutionaries, workaholics, lovers of all kinds.

    Jay always said he wanted a beautiful woman to kill him. She could be me, killing him slowly, one headache, one heartache, at a time. If my life was a painting, I’ve already messed up the canvas, made many mistakes and accumulated regrets for inaction. It’s time to pull together all the loose ends, the painful lessons, the dark memories of my life and transform it into a beautiful work of art.

    That night, as I blew out the candles on my birthday cake, I wished for more time to love him the way he wants to be loved as a unique and extraordinary human. I’ve only just begun to learn how.

    Love, Lust, & Liberty,

    May Ling Su signature

    P.S. See the full photo set at MAYCAM.

  • Strange Things

    Strange Things

    Shortly after Lilith: Queen of the Demons was published Jay and I became friends with a young woman named Lillian. She had straight black hair down to her waist, an hourglass figure, and a pretty smile. She used to visit weekly, always dressed impeccably from head to toe. She and Jay spent a lot of time together, cooking and baking all kinds of goodies. They were friends and sometimes they were lovers.

    When Lillian was a baby in Vietnam, she suffered a fire injury that required her to undergo surgery. The operation left her without a belly button for the rest of her life. Just like Lilith, who was not born of a human mother, fashioned out of clay by God.

    It was uncanny and I thought it auspicious to have her in our lives. There was a point when she began looking for a house to buy in which we could all live together, but it all changed when she met someone else. They got married in a whirl. We never saw her again.

    I will always consider her arrival as an otherworldly presence. The divine moves in mysterious ways. I cannot begin to fathom it. I can only be thankful when it happens.

    Lilith book series on audiobook, kindle, paperback by May Ling Su

    Another strange visitation occurred when I was recording the audiobook for Lilith: Generations of Cain. I didn’t notice it while I recorded, but during playback the angel and demon names were obscured by static.

    The first time it happened I got a shiver down my spine. I took a pause, then went back in front of the microphone like a soldier. Every time it happened I got more stubborn and determined to get through the text. Lilith: Generations of Cain is all about the power of names. It seemed to me that a presence, divine or not, was making me work hard to pronounce these holy and unholy names.

    This past summer as I worked on Lilith: Beyond the Deluge, I was on a business call with someone who went off tangent about strange situations he had found himself in, seeing supernatural creatures among people in New York City, hearing people’s thoughts from across the room. He said he felt like he could tell me these things he never told anyone. I listened to him for an hour before I wrapped up the conversation and brought it back to business. I asked for his name.

    “Michael.”

    “You have an ‘el’ name,” I mused. Many of the angels (and some demons) have names that end with ‘el.’ Azazel, Samael, Rafael, Gabriel, Baraqiel, Daniel, Michael…

    “Ah, so you know…” He sounded pleased. “It comes from God’s name ‘El Shaddai’ and ‘Elohim.’”

    I thanked him again and said goodbye.

    Before he hung up he said, “You will hear from me again.”

    I thought nothing of it. Even when I pulled out of the garage and saw a crow sitting in a tree across from me I didn’t think to tie anything together.

    I should mention that it was a special day, my Dad’s birthday and my (great grand aunt) Lola Ilyang’s death day. I facetimed with my Dad that evening, but the only way I connected with Lola Ilyang was from mysterious events that happened all day: a swarm of bees robbing my hive, the phone call from an angel, the crow in the tree. Everything brought me memories of her.

    Laurelia (Lola Ilyang) was a spinster who lived with her little dachshund, Cupsi, in a hut in the middle of a tobacco field in Pangasinan. She was the first witchy woman in my life. She had long salt and pepper hair. She told stories of the kapre smoking her tobacco. She entertained our maids by reading common playing cards for divination.

    Ten days after the odd phone call, my mother tagged me in a Facebook post. My college friend died. Deogracias Cruz. Is there a name more God-like than his? The Facebook post contained a video of Deo singing the Prayer to St. Michael.

    “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.”

    The man on the phone said I would hear from him again. I did not know it would be this way.

    That afternoon Jay invited me out to the temple he had built in our backyard, overgrown with yarrow and lupines in the spring; tansy, mint, and goldenrod in the late summer. Jay spent the summer clearing around an arrangement of rocks and made paths to it. He decorated the place with Hindu gods and goddesses, Balinese wooden animals, and a statue of Quan Yin. There is a bed of marbles of various sizes, a solar system at the foot of a wooden frog. A Nag Champa cone burned and dripped smoke down a path in the rocks. As soon as the incense burned out, it started to rain. Thunder. We went inside.

    I made chicken soup from scratch. It’s a long process that begins with boiling a chicken carcass into broth. My daughter named it “Mama’s famous chicken soup” way back when a butcher in California used to gift me with chicken carcasses whenever I came around his shop. I set aside a wishbone for my collection. I keep several wishbones in a little teapot. I realize it’s kind of witchy but it makes me feel lucky.

    Deogracias. Thank You, God.

    Love, Lust, & Liberty,

    May Ling Su signature

  • Mothering Nature

    Mothering Nature

    Not gonna lie, I struggled with this year’s Birthday Nude. The entire process was discomforting. I found myself being hypercritical of my aging body. I booted up my images in Lightroom and moved the texture slider all the way to the left to smooth out my spongy middle. I sent the images to Photoshop and cloned my wrinkles and belly folds away. Then in a fit of frustration I closed them all up unsaved.

    For the Birthday Nude series to stay relevant in the years to come I’m going to have to post these photos unedited as I always have or I won’t do them at all.

    If I continue, I will have to confront my naked self, not just my aging body. My emotional reactions reveal so much of who I am. Posting it publicly adds another layer of confrontation. I will have to ask myself the hard questions. How do I feel? Why do I feel this way? Do I feel shame? What am I ashamed of?

    I have come to an age when I am proud of who I am and where I’m at in life. That doesn’t mean I look at my body with rose-colored glasses. As someone who has spent decades creating media with my body, I can look at images of myself with objectivity.

    In these photos I wear nothing but make-up. I have not given in to temptations of botox or cosmetic surgery. Yet. Maybe never. I don’t know. No judgement on those who do. I haven’t dyed my hair since four months ago and I’m liking the streak of gray growing out of the right side of my hairline.

    I enjoyed celebrating my birthday this year. I feel like I’ve been celebrating for weeks now, random presents, time spent with people I adore.

    I look at my healthy, beautiful, smart, and talented daughter and feel successful as a mother. Mothering my child has been top priority for the past fifteen years. Everyone and everything else took the back seat. It’s worth it. I invested my time and energy wisely. Now I’m opening myself up to mothering more of the world.

    My co-parent, business partner, artistic collaborator, lover, my Man. How I love my Man. We’ve been through so much, good times and nightmarish ones. For so long I’ve taken him for granted, thinking he doesn’t need my mothering because he’s eight years older than me, bolder than me, everything more than me. I was wrong. We’re holding on for dear life and rediscovering who we are to each other at each stage of the game.

    College boy somehow slipped in as one of my favorite people on this planet. We’ve known each other for years and he knows most sides of my compartmentalized life. During those moments when my Man was too emotionally involved in the situation to be my friend, my boy took me in his arms and told me he’s got me. I take care of him, too.

    And you… I appreciate you. Thank you for coming along on my journey.

    May Ling Su birthday nude
    May Ling Su birthday nude in the barn hayloft, sitting on a vintage World War II army cot.

    This year marks my 20th birthday nude. We shot at home. The photo above was taken in the barn hayloft, an amazing play space when it’s warm enough. It’s a reminder to seize the moment. Winter is coming. Life goes by way too fast. My time is limited. Soon we will have to leave our 169-year-old haunted farmhouse that we’ve made even more haunted with vintage treasures. I’m a little sad to go, but excited to begin once more.

    The photo above was taken in the backyard, lush with wildflowers and this abundant hydrangea bush. It’s a sanctuary for birds, bees, and butterflies. Snakes and mice. Chipmunks and squirrels. The best approach to mothering nature is to let it be wild (also applies to mothering humans).

    This past year I’ve been spending a lot of time in nature, hiking up mountains and swimming in lakes. This summer I participated in a podcast with Agam, for which they paid me by planting four trees in my name. I intend to plant more trees every year for the rest of my life as part of my legacy.

    Cheers! 🍷

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  • My Friend For Life, Gina

    My Friend For Life, Gina

    I went to an all-girls nun-run Catholic high school in the Philippines, very strict and narrow-minded. I was a good student but something as trivial as my asymmetric hairstyle got their nunnery panties in a bunch. What made high school life worth living was Gina. She and I connected on an artistic and literary level. She was a huge The Cure fan, so I drew her a portrait of Robert Smith. She wrote me a fantasy article for Town & Country magazine, in which I am a fabulous art curator and married to Johnny Depp. We talked endlessly about ideas for stories we wanted to write someday and we talked about sex. Sure, we had no experience whatsoever, but we were teenagers. Sex was an obsession.

    In college she went to UP and I went to Ateneo. She partied hard with her sorority sisters. I got sucked into music and theatre. She invited me to an Upsilon event once. I felt out of place. Our paths divided for the time being.

    She tracked me down in the mid-90s when I was in New York. I was performing Off and Off-Off-Broadway. She was a young single mom, making it as a writer and editor in Manila. She found out I made my own body products so she asked me to write an article for her fledgling magazine, Earthian. It was granola and green long before it was a thing. I accepted. It was my first published piece.

    In the mid-2000s she discovered an obscure anonymous blog I was writing about my pregnancy and home birth. She asked if she could publish it on Working Mom magazine. How could I say no to celebrating my infant’s birth on the pages of a glossy magazine? Gina made me feel like a celebrity.

    When she found out about my porn, she stayed on my side all the way. She defended me against attacks behind my back from people we went to high school with and if you knew her, you’d know she unleashed a fury on anyone who crossed her or her loved ones. I flew to San Diego to catch up with her when she visited in 2010. We were regulars at her pub, Fred’s Revolucion in Cubao X in 2012. A few years later, she and her family were guests in our old farmhouse in Maine. We shared stories, beer, and laughter indoors while our kids ages 11 and 12 built a bonfire in the backyard because that’s the kind of parents we were and that’s the kind of kickass kids we raised.

    She roped me in to write for Agam, the book of photos by her husband, photojournalist Jose Enrique Soriano. As executive editor, she included me among 24 contributing writers – accomplished poets, journalists, anthropologists, scientists, and artists from the Philippines. I felt like the black sheep among those luminaries, but Gina was my champion. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. She autographed my copy of the book: Will always be your friend, fan, and supporter – living vicariously through your groundbreaking work. Love you.

    Tuesday night I got a message from her husband. Gina was in a coma in St. Luke’s ER. No one saw it coming. He asked for prayers. When an atheist asks an agnostic to pray for a Catholic, you know it’s serious. I prayed. I used all my mental energy to summon her back. “Come back, Gina,” I commented on a recent Facebook post in which she had tagged me. Come back, Gina, I thought constantly day and night. Come back to us. Thursday around 5 in the morning I woke up with a cramp in my chest. It pinched everytime I breathed. My heart literally hurt. I messaged her husband, “Tell me something, anything.”

    She’s gone.

    “She loved you and we were looking forward to visiting again.”

    I had a difficult loud ugly cry by myself until Jay came out of his studio and held me and we cried together. I am so glad he got to know her. I’m glad I have somebody to grieve with and celebrate her life with.

    Gina recently posted a fabulous profile picture across all her social media channels and even more fabulous photos of her and her kids at a kiki ball. Just last weekend her kids thanked her for giving them “a rich uncommon childhood.” She said she won the “lotto of life.” Her latest piece, my favorite yet, the crass and soulful Patricio, was published online on Esquire posthumously. I joked to Jay that it was a memorial-worthy social media presence, one to aspire to. He asked me not to die until my profile pictures got really old and ugly.

    I got out a bottle of beer from the fridge, spilled some in her honor, and drank to my friend. Gina had a sharp wit and a fiery nature. She was a fierce mother and a fierce friend. She burned brilliantly, my friend for life. Gina burned fast, but she burned exceptionally bright.

    Love, Lust, & Liberty,
    May Ling Su